Karl Beer
When I was young my best friend lived across from an old church that belonged in a black and white Universal horror film. The graves were broken and overgrown and the rusted fence looked more like the bars at an asylum than those surrounding a place of worship. But it was not the church or its grounds that stayed with me as I grew up; it was the field behind that church. I admit I was an impressionable child, I believed in Werewolves and Sirens who sang out to ships driving the sailors mad so that they crashed against the rocks. So when stories reached me of a monster living within this field I naturally believed that a monster did exist. I never questioned it. The creature was called Ernie the Horse. Half man, half horse with clumped red hair and gnarled fangs. One night me and my friend gathered our courage and entered the field from behind the church. It was a clear night and the long grass appeared blue in the moonlight. I never forget how scared I was. At the edge of the field I saw it, a large figure in the shape of a horse with the torso of a man! It noticed us and moved closer. We fled from the field with the sounds of hooves at our back. I saw Ernie, I knew I had. For months after I suffered nightmares. I now know I saw a horse and my anxiety conjured the rest to frighten my young self, but a part of me still believes I saw a monster that night. Writing Crik allowed that child, which is still within me, to believe in monsters again and to make others believe as well. The magic of writing fantasy is that anything can exist; it is only a matter of believing.
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